Main content of studies on white space technologies is to provide a mechanism in which a secondary user uses, at a specified time and place, a spectrum resource not used by a primary user, and the secondary user cannot cause interference to the primary user in a spectrum using process.
In the prior art, a white space is applied mainly in a manner of querying a white space database (database). Specifically, the white space database performs centralized management on a white space resource and records information such as time when the white space resource can be used by a secondary user and a geographic location of the white space resource. When the secondary user needs to use a white space resource, the secondary user can initiate a procedure for requesting a white space resource, and reports, to the database, white space resource selection information such as a geographic location or required bandwidth, and the database allocates a white space resource according to the white space resource selection information reported by the secondary user and white space resource information stored in the database. In the prior art, user equipments using a white space may be grouped as master white space devices (master WSD) and slave WSDs (slave WSD) according to capabilities to access the database. A master WSD must support the PAWS protocol, so as to directly acquire an available white space resource from the database by using a PAWS protocol packet; however, a slave WSD cannot perform direct communication with the database, and needs to acquire an available white space resource from the database by using the master WSD.
In the foregoing prior art, all master WSDs or all network nodes supporting functions of a master WSD must support the PAWS protocol to acquire a white space resource from the database; therefore, flexibility of network deployment is relatively poor.